


Sleep with the Fishes

by Nightfoot



Series: Goretober 2016 [6]
Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drowning, Gen, Goretober 2016, mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightfoot/pseuds/Nightfoot
Summary: Detective Flynn has been captured by some gangsters who want revenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another Goretober fic. This time the prompt is 'Drowning'.

Flynn braced himself when the car stopped moving. He’d spent the last half hour trying to reach the cell phone in his pocket, but all he had to show for his efforts were sore wrists.  It had vibrated a few times, probably Yuri calling him, but he couldn’t reach it to answer and ask for help.  The trunk of the car was too small and his knees were folded uncomfortably.  Half an hour ago, he’d been taking the trash out and getting ready for Yuri to come over and watch a movie.  Then three men had ambushed him at the side of the road, shoved a gun in his face, and pulled his hands behind his back.  It hadn’t even occurred to Flynn to carry his gun while at home, though he supposed he wouldn’t have had time to use it anyway.  

The trunk opened and two silhouettes stood over him.  The first thing he heard was the rush of waves and the scent of salt tickled his nose.  The men grabbed him under the arms and pulled him out of the trunk.  After being cramped for so long, his legs were shaky when he finally stood up.  They were on a narrow stretch of concrete between an old wooden building and the ocean.  Water lapped against the concrete embankment lit up by the full moon, and a rotting wooden pier stretch about twenty feet into the sea.  

Flynn didn’t have time to get a good look, because the men holding him dragged him through a doorway and into the warehouse.  A few floodlights had been set up inside to keep it from being pitch black.  Flynn was thrown to the ground in the middle of these lights and without being able to use his hands, his chin banged against the cold floor.

“Good evening, Detective.”  A new person stepped forward and then crouched in front of him.  He grabbed a fistful of Flynn’s hair and tilted his head back.  “Nice of you to join us.”

“You should have sent me a save-the-date.  I had a prior engagement tonight.”  And by now, his partner Yuri would have gotten to Flynn’s house and found him gone.  The car had sped away pretty quickly; would he notice skid marks on the curb?  Interview neighbours about who had been parked there?  

“Do you know who I am?”

Flynn took in the scenario.  Five men milled around, all causally holding hand guns.  The one right in front wore a dark suit and had even darker hair.  More than that, Flynn considered what he’d been up to for the past couple of months, and it wasn’t hard to guess.  But, he didn't know this guy specifically.  “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“The name’s Tony.  I think you’ve met my brother, Frank?”

Brother?  That explained this.  “Frank Bianchi?  Yes, I remember him.”

Tony smashed his fist across Flynn’s face.  “He’s in prison because of you.”

Flynn took a moment to wait for the stars to go away.  He blinked a few times and ignored the ache in his cheekbone.  “He’s in prison because he sold contraband firearms to drug runners.”  Flynn had been working on rounding up all the members of this crime family for a year, and catching Bianchi last month had been a huge breakthrough.  He should have known Bianchi’s friends would want revenge.  

“Pick him up.”  

Flynn kicked when Tony’s henchmen came for him, but with his hands bound, he didn’t have much hope of fighting off five men.  It might have been better if he had shoes on, but he hadn’t bothered putting them on to take the trash out and now his bare feet didn’t do much to fight them off.  They heaved him to his feet and he put up a fight for a few seconds, more for the principle of the thing than anything else.  

“It’s not my fault your brother got busted.”  Flynn refused to cooperate and go nicely, so they dragged him across the floor with his feet scuffing the concrete the whole way. They only travelled a few yards, to a beam in the ceiling.  Tony tossed a rope over it and Flynn swallowed heavily, fearing he was about to be hanged.  Instead, the tail of the rope ended in a carabiner.  The henchmen turned Flynn around and Tony clipped it around the loop of plastic digging into Flynn’s wrists.  When he yanked on the other end of the rope, it pulled up and jerked Flynn’s arms behind his back.  Flynn winced as his shoulders strained and he was forced onto his tip-toes.  Tony tied his end of the rope to the handle of a bucket full of bricks and let go, leaving Flynn balancing on his toes to keep the strain off his shoulders.  

“You know, you’re probably right.”  Tony left the pool of light momentarily and came back with a large tin bucket. “It isn’t your fault Frank broke the law, and it isn’t your fault you got assigned to that case.”  Tony nodded to one of his henchmen, who yanked the rope down and caused Flynn to swing into the air.

Flynn yelped and wondered if his arms had been ripped out of their sockets.  Something surely had snapped in his shoulder.  When his feet were off the ground, Tony kicked the bucket beneath him so he came down to stand in it, still on his toes but shaking now.  His shoulders were on fire and he hated the satisfied smile on Tony’s face.  If only he’d held in that cry and not given this bastard the pleasure of seeing him in pain.  

“But you know?”  Tony gently ran his fingers over the side of Flynn’s face, just below the growing bruise from before.  “Sometimes, life just isn’t fair.  You didn’t ask to be responsible for my brother’s case, but as it is, you put him in prison.  I can’t just let that slide.  If people think they can come after my family and nothing will happen to them, where will I be then?”

Flynn curled his lips.  “Hopefully in prison.”

Tony laughed and pulled his hand away.  “It really is a shame.  I think I would have enjoyed playing cat and mouse with you, Detective.”  He waved his hand and some of his men stepped up, one with a hose and the other with a large bag, like the kind mulch came in.  “But as it is, I’m sure you understand that I have to kill you.”

Tony ripped open the bag and its contents spilled into the bucket.  It wasn’t dirt but a sandy grey powder that clouded in the air around Flynn’s legs.  When the first bag was empty, he poured in a second one until the powder nearly reached his knees.  As a plus, it filled in the space under his feet so he didn’t have to keep standing on his toes.  

“I’m sorry, this is rather cliche.”  Tony took the house from the other man and squeezed the nozzle to let water begin flowing.  “I’ve seen it in old movies all the time and I just wanted to try it, you know?”

The water sank through the powder, slowly turning it into a thick, gooey mixture.  This was concrete.  Flynn listened to the waves just outside the warehouse shuddered, knowing perfectly well how this evening was going to end.  He tugged his foot up, desperate to get out of tis before he dried.  The concrete sucked his feet in and made it difficult to move.  He wobbled and struggled to balance on his toes, and every swaying movement sent pain through his arms.  When he finally managed to get one leg out of the concrete, it still clung to him in thick clumps.

“So, what are you going to do now?”  Tony watched with arms folded and a smirk.

Flynn glared at him and moved his foot to the edge of the basin.  Could he tip it over?  A tentative push proved that no, he couldn’t.  It was too heavy and he didn’t have enough leverage.  Could he climb out?  He tried, but the bucket was too wide and tall for him to get his foot all the way to the ground on the other side.  As soon as he started pulling his other foot out, he had to hold his weight on his arms and that made his vision flash white and his first foot slipped back into the concrete, while he gasped in pain.  The muddy mixture eagerly reclaimed his leg and settled around him once more.  Flynn gritted his teeth and breathed deeply.  Of course, Tony wouldn’t have stood by and let him try to let him escape if he thought it was at all possible.  Even if he got his feet out of this bucket, he was bound, tied to the ceiling, and surrounded by men with guns who hated him.  

As he was thinking of ways to escape, his pocket vibrated.  Yuri! Perhaps he could reach his phone and explain his predicament and -

Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out the vibrating phone.  “Yuri Lowell?  Isn’t that your partner?”  He turned to one of his men.  “Gag him.”

Flynn started to protest but then a rag was shoved into his mouth.  The man gripped Flynn’s hair to keep his head still and kept his hand clamped over Flynn’s mouth with the other.

Tony put the phone to his ear.  “Hey there….  No, sorry, Flynn can’t come to the phone right now.”

“Mmmhrrrmm - MMMMM!”  Flynn shook his head to try to throw the man off and spit the cloth out.  If he could just tell Yuri where he was - not that he knew where he was beyond ‘an old warehouse by the coast’ - he might have a chance.

“Yeah, that’s him…. Now if I told you my name, that would take the fun out of this….  Ouch, that’s rather graphic, don’t you think? … Yes, yes, I’m sure you will.  Ok, do you want to say goodbye?  I’ll put him on.”

Tony held the phone toward Flynn’s head.  As it got closer, Yuri’s voice became audible. “…kick your ass so hard your children feel it!”

Flynn shouted through the gag to get Yuri’s attention.  Was there anything he could do to help Yuri find him?

“Flynn?  Is that you?”

He grunted in confirmation.

“I’m coming, Flynn.  Judy and I have got this.  Hold tight and we’ll-”

Tony pulled the phone away and hung up. “He sounds nice.”  He slipped the phone into his pocket.  “Did you guys get along well?  You can take the gag out, by the way.”

As soon as the hand left his mouth, Flynn spat the cloth out.  “Yuri is going to beat you to a pulp.”

“That’s police brutality.”

“He’s off duty tonight.”

Tony smirked.  “I’ll take my chances.  How’s that concrete coming along?”

Flynn wiggled his legs, alarmed by how difficult this was.  Tony must have used fast-drying concrete, because it was already stiffening.  The concrete grew warm as it cured and pressed around his feet.  

Tony checked his watch.  “Another twenty minutes ought to do it.  Hold tight for a bit; I need to make a phone call.”

“Don’t let me hold you up,” Flynn sneered.

Tony left the warehouse, but of course he left some of his men behind to watch Flynn.  Even that wasn’t necessary.  The concrete had thickened enough that he wouldn’t be able to pull his legs out at all now.  Concrete between his toes expanded as it cured, rubbing against his skin.  His shoulders throbbed, his wrists hurt, and it was all very uncomfortable, but he hoped it would last a long time because when it was over, they were dumping him in the ocean.  

Time trickled by.  Tony’s henchmen kept looking at him, but there was nothing to watch.  He stood still, trying to remember when he’d last updated his will.  Had it been after he bought his house?  He didn’t have any family, so his will was pretty simple: everything went to Yuri.  Of course, he’d rather it not even come to that, but he didn’t see any way out of this.  The pressure on his feet was becoming painful.  

Shit.  He’d always known that becoming a cop might get him killed someday, but he hadn’t thought it would be like this.  He’d rather they just shoot him in the head then drown him.  He tried to imagine what it was going to feel like to have water pressing all around and his lungs bursting, and then he tried not to. 

When Tony finally returned, the concrete was as hard as stone.  Flynn was pretty sure some of the bones in his feet had cracked, though he supposed the concrete made a perfect cast.  The tips of his toes were still pressed against the metal bottom of the bucket, but otherwise he was encased in a solid block of concrete up to just a few inches below his knees.  

Tony walked up to Flynn, now holding a baseball bat.  Flynn glared at him and did his best to not noticeably stare at the bat and wonder what he planned to do with it.  

“Good news,” Tony said and unclipped the carabiner from Flynn’s wrists.  “My boss is pretty pleased with me for getting rid of a cop.  He’s gonna give me bonus.”

“Glad I could help.”  With the rope no long dragging his arms up, he could finally stand straight.

“He did ask me to give you a few good thumps for all the trouble you’ve caused.”

“Now hold on, I haven’t-”

When the bat hit his stomach, Flynn fell backward.  The block of concrete on his feet tipped, but stubbornly remained on the floor.  Flynn bent at the knees, smashing the back of his head on the ground and then struggling to pick himself up again.  He heard some snickers from the shadows as he attempted to get up and the resulting fury just made him struggle more.

Tony stepped around and looked down at him.  “You seem to be in an awkward position.  Need some help?”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

“Why are cops always so rude?”  He swung his bat at Flynn’s legs this time and collided with his left knee.  

Flynn heard the crack before he felt the rush of pain, which was followed by a strained groan.  Tony grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him upright, but when he let go, Flynn wavered and tried to take weight off his busted knee.  Then the wind whistled as the bat swished through the air and collided with his jaw.  Flynn grunted as his head snapped to the side.  Pain blossomed through his face and he was certain his jaw was broken.  That would be a painful recovery… assuming he lived to tomorrow.  

“Well, it’s been a fun evening, Flynn, but I think it’s time to wrap this up.  Take him to the edge.”

The others grabbed him under his arms and dragged him again, but this time they dragged a chunk of concrete with them.  His body felt stretched like a rope dragging a boulder, and the stress on his feet told him they were definitely broken.  His broken knee was the worst, as the dragging concrete pulled the joint as much as it could and he feared the whole thing would snap in two.  They finally let him go right on the edge of the walkway, with the ocean churning just four feet below.  It looked so very dark.

Tony slung his arm around Flynn’s shoulders and stared into the depths with him.  “You know, I heard drowning is just like going to sleep.”

“Care to join me, then?”  The words were mumbled as he tried not to move his jaw.

He patted his shoulder.  “I really do regret this.  You’re not bad, for a cop.”

Flynn glanced around, hoping for any last minute stroke of genius to get out of this.  But it was just him, Tony, the water, and this solid anchor encased around his feet.  This was where he was going to die.  In these final moments of life, time stretched.  He thought about every case he hadn’t solved yet, and then all the ones he had.  He thought of Yuri, and hoped his best friend didn’t do anything stupid with the money he inherited.  He thought about the ocean, and how it was so cold and dark and how he _really didn’t want to die in it_.  That thought swelled up and washed over all the others.  In the wake of that dread came outrage at these bastards for doing this, grief for leaving behind his friends, and shock at how surreal it was that about an hour ago, he’d been safe at home.  It just wasn’t fair.  

“Say hi to the fishies for me.”

Tony shoved him in the back.  Flynn took in a deep breath as he dropped.  He didn’t close his eyes, though, and that’s why he saw the headlights approaching the warehouse.

When he hit the water, he stopped thinking about the lights.  It was so cold he almost gasped for breath.  Flynn had jumped into water many times before, but he was used to going down a few feet and then bobbing up again.  This time, the weight on his feet plummeted as if there was no water resistance at all.  His whole body twisted in an attempt to keep himself afloat, and he thought he might break his wrists from how furiously he tried to snap the zip ties.  

He sank maybe ten feet before hitting bottom, and didn’t stop struggling when he got there.  He jumped, sending shards of pain through his knee, and got a few millimetres off the seabed before the concrete thumped down again.  Water had never felt so heavy.  The salt burned his eyes and he felt bubbles of air escape his lips.  The actual pressure on his lungs was almost rivalled by the horrible fear in his pounding heart.  His body knew it was going to die, and didn’t like it.  

He hated the quiet.  Water muffled his ears and he could barely hear scraps of sound from the surface.  It was so isolating.  He was alone in the ocean, with no sound to distract him from his frantically beating heart and ever more painful lungs.  They strained against his ribcage now, demanding air.  He felt his mouth open, stupidly gulping in water as if that would do anything.  When it didn’t, he breathed in water from his nose because some primal part of his body refused to believe that air was not an option.  His thrashing against the concrete slowed.  His chest hurt so bad and fear of imminent death sent out shocks of panic that were just as miserable to endure.  The ocean was dark already, but it faded toward pitch black.  He didn’t have the energy to fight anymore and his mind finally seemed to accept the prospect that the body it was in had reached the end of the line.  In a way, it was a relief to accept this.  The absence of panic was nice, at least.  

And then everything… just… floated away….

* * *

 

Flynn awoke to a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest.  Something stabbed him once more and then a mouth pressed over his and he felt his lungs inflating.  His eyes cracked open and long, wet hair tickled them.  After a few more breaths, the person kneeling over him slammed his fists into Flynn’s chest again.  

Flynn wanted to yell, ‘stop’, but only had the strength to moan, “No….”

“Flynn!?”

Breathing had never been so strenuous.  His lungs felt like actual muscles that had to work hard just to suck in air, and when they did, broken ribs sent stabs of pain through his torso.  

Yuri sat up and rested two fingers against the side of Flynn’s neck.  After a few seconds, he smiled.  “I’ve never been so glad to feel a pulse.”

“What…?”

“Judy and I arrived just as that bastard shoved you in.  She took care of rounding up the gangsters and I jumped in to pull you out.  Some of them got away, but we caught their leader.”

“H-how….”  She turned his head and cough until more water came out.  “Did you find me?”

“Well, I knew from asking your neighbour that the car left your house about an hour ago.  And we knew by the time that guy answered the phone that the car had stopped, so we had a radius of how far you could have gone.  Couple that with pinging your phone to the nearest cell tower and hearing the ocean in the background of the call, so narrowing it down to this stretch of coast, and we figured the abandoned warehouse was a good place to start looking for a gangster hideout."

Flynn smiled, but his jaw was broken so he quickly stopped.  “Good work.”

Yuri squeezed Flynn’s shoulder.  “An ambulance is on the way.”  Then he patted the concrete block still encased around Flynn’s legs.  “And maybe we should call a construction company, too.”

 


End file.
